Jennie and Kate, family pioneers to America
When Jennie was thirteen years old she had to go out working. She hated those Dutch farmers who were so commanding. When she became sixteen years old, every time she came home she would spin a bottle, and it would always point to America. She would tell Opa and Moeke that she would pave the way so the whole family could come, and at the age of eighteen, that wish came true. When she was going to leave, the two sisters, Jennie and Kate, had a brainstorm—if the folks would let Kate go too, they would be together in America, and it would be sooner for the rest to come. So Jennie, eighteen years, and Kate, sixteen years, finally got permission, and they left in the year 1914. The younger children will never forget that when they were gone Mother Tryntje was in a kneeling position by a chair and cried and cried and prayed, "Oh, what have we done, what have we done?" It all turned out so bad because when they came to Rotterdam, the boat that Jennie was taking was full so Kate had to go on the next one. Opa had written to the chaplain in New York to meet Kate on the boat. But as they arrived, the missionary was late and Kate became anxious and started leaving the boat. A man took her by the arm and told her to go in his carriage and he would take her to the train. As she was stepping to go in the carriage, she asked him to tell her what her name was and he couldn't answer. Then she heard frantic calls from the boat for her from the missionary. She would have gone to white slavery, but the Lord was merciful.
Later, sister Jeanette also had a terrible experience—she was twelve years old, anxious to earn a little money, so she was supposed to go and babysit. After she left, Mother prayed again and again; God also spared her and brought her home, as that man too would have brought her to white slavery. This was in Chicago in 1914.
While Jennie and Kate were working in America, the whole family was thinking about coming to America. Many things had to be planned, and to get a big family ready for such a trip was very trying. Father and Mother had bought a home when they were married a few years, and when they started to get ready for the big trip they had to sell it. They had lived all those years in that house and had always paid the interest on the loan but were never able to pay the principal. But then when it was sold at auction, they got more for it than they had paid, so they paid the loan off and had a little left. Well, finally they were ready for the big trip.